I would say elementalist has the most ability to solo and can run builds scaling from the uber defensive to full offense.
Mesmer is generally accepted into groups rather easily, since time warp is an awesome skill.
Necromancer has in my opinion, a broad set of utility skills second only to the variety warrior has, and one of the highest end game skill caps.

I have a lvl 80 ele and mesmer.. both are good for solo and build variety. I enjoy playing both of them. My necro is only lvl 25 and i am not really thrilled with her. Soloing is easy enough but just boring for me on the necro..

If he runs a power build, Lich Form + Time Warp absolutely mauls anything anywhere ever. If he runs a condition build, stacks of confusion and other conditions from staff + epidemic is a powerful combo.

There's less synergy with an elementalist, but the elementalist can gather up the enemies rather easily with a defensive build, allowing the necro to spam bleeds on everything easily.

It's not that they would be completely unusable, it's just that necro is comparatively bad for high end pve because all condition builds suck, ele is ok, but does not bring higher damage while being quite vulnerable by default. Mesmer is still the best of them, decent dps and good utility.
It's not like the adventurer classes were any better though.

In general being at range means you'll last longer than in melee, so they're not likely to give eles high DPS. Eles do have decent AOE but so does every soldier profession with superior DPS (warrior and guardian GS both hit harder both single-target and AOE). The tradeoff is that you have it a lot easier in general since you're far away and don't have to work as hard to stay live. Your DPS isn't going to be super high but it remains relatively stable even when you can't range, unlike the warrior whose DPS goes to near zero and the guardian who will only hit high damage on large, relatively stationary targets.

That said, it's nothing to do with being a "scholar profession," it's just those classes in general not being that good. Armor type doesn't make a huge difference in the long run, it's just that the difference between the soldier professions and the others is more pronounced since they have better defensive options by virtue of class design. You won't even notice the difference between medium and light armor though. In fact, the squishiest class in the game isn't even the elementalist, it's the thief, who technically has more armor.

If you do want a "useful" caster class, you can run with mesmer and use a sword in melee. You will do okay damage (nowhere near what a warrior or guardian could put out, but that's a given) and you have a lot of gimmicks as well. Plus, clone zergs are funny.

I might just play necro since the mesmer and ele were too weak for my taste. I prefer the crude DoT's of the necro. My friend isn't even going to play for a while according to him. So yeah. I'll just make a necro.

I might just play necro since the mesmer and ele were too weak for my taste. I prefer the crude DoT's of the necro. My friend isn't even going to play for a while according to him. So yeah. I'll just make a necro.

LDB spam thief can bleed cap solo without too much trouble, on multiple targets no less.

Even if you've got an Earth sigil proccing every DB and max bleed duration (runes, traits, and Sigil of Agony for +85%) one DB is going to get you 63 ticks of bleed. That means you're going to have to DB every 2.5 seconds or so on average, which will cost you 2 initiative per second. I don't think there's any way to get that much average initiative regen.

And before you say anything, it's AVERAGE initiative regen. Kleptomaniac may give 3 initiative instantly but it's on a long CD so over the entire cooldown it's only about .095 initiative per second.

Even if you've got an Earth sigil proccing every DB and max bleed duration (runes, traits, and Sigil of Agony for +85%) one DB is going to get you 63 ticks of bleed. That means you're going to have to DB every 2.5 seconds or so on average, which will cost you 2 initiative per second. I don't think there's any way to get that much average initiative regen.

And before you say anything, it's AVERAGE initiative regen. Kleptomaniac may give 3 initiative instantly but it's on a long CD so over the entire cooldown it's only about .095 initiative per second.

Are you talking sustain 25 stack with 100% uptime? Then no, a LDB thief can't do that (and I apologize for misunderstanding you) and I highly doubt any class can actually have 100% solo max stack sustain especially given some of the longer fights found in dungeons/fractals and whatnot (but given some numbers, I'd be more than willing to admit if I were incorrect), but sustain for long enough to kill any mob short of a boss/champ? Sure, its not difficult with a combination of LDB, Caltrops, Dodgetrops, init regen from Withdraw, Steal init regen, RfI, might stacks on dodge, perma-vigor through two sources (Steal/Withdraw), a % of endurance returned on each dodge, max init up by 3 AND Kleptomanic (as you mentioned, not real great for sustaining init, but good for a burst init gain to pop 2 more LDBs on the target)...throw it all together on a thief player who knows who to use the combination and you have a stack of 25 bleeds, solo, on multiple targets.

This is all without Earth sigil and without crits at all, using Carrion armor and a sigil of agony (+10% bleed duration), plus a mix of runes that give +30% bleed duration and some condition damage.

Its possible. Its been done.

But, in the spirit of staying on topic, which I did not do in my first post in this thread...A lot of it depends on how you prefer to play (a squishy answer, I know). Ele can be versatile and a bunker/aura build on them can be quite fun in a group, but solo they are a bit lacking. Mesmer is amusing to watch and play, but the builds themselves seem to be a bit complicated and some of their synergies between traits and weapons don't seem to match up real well. Necro has some nice condition damage abilities, arguably one of the better classes for condition damage (especially AoE condition damage through use of BiP and Epidemic) as well as the ability to run a power/wells build that makes for some funzies in PvE (I wouldn't recommend it too much for PvP just because wells are quite easy to avoid, but then again, I don't do a whole lot of PvP, so take that comment with a grain of salt ).

Personally, so far I like the Necro the best, a power/wells PvE build is enjoyable. I've had some trouble actually getting into the Ele and the Mesmer; they just don't really appeal to me, but I'll get around to playing them eventually.

Really don't think I could disagree more with this statement... I suppose you *might* be able to argue from a pure sustained dps argument on paper that you can top off better with warrior or guardian, but not without sacrificing a lot of utility and versatility. I mean, yes, 5 greatsword warriors with FGJ, SoR, Signet of Might, and Frenzy could easily reach maximum might stacks but they don't exactly have a lot of other things they can do...

@OP: It's not really fair to make judgements on Ele or Mesmer just from testing them out at low levels. Mesmer, for example, doesn't REALLY come into its own until level oh... 40. Once they hit that level though, every 5-10 levels is an awesome increase in power. I'd say they have the most unique things they can do out of any class with a slew of reflects, movement skills, stealths and boon sharing.

My only issue with Necromancer, personally, is a lack of build versatility. They're hands down the best condition-management class, and also have surprising survivability.

Elementalist on the other hand, is a bit misleading. From GW1, they should be a burny burst class. However, in GW2, they're more boon management, healing utility, and sustained damage. They're only really fragile before you learn how to cycle their healing, or if you build them that way.

Are you talking sustain 25 stack with 100% uptime? Then no, a LDB thief can't do that (and I apologize for misunderstanding you) and I highly doubt any class can actually have 100% solo max stack sustain especially given some of the longer fights found in dungeons/fractals and whatnot (but given some numbers, I'd be more than willing to admit if I were incorrect), but sustain for long enough to kill any mob short of a boss/champ? Sure, its not difficult with a combination of LDB, Caltrops, Dodgetrops, init regen from Withdraw, Steal init regen, RfI, might stacks on dodge, perma-vigor through two sources (Steal/Withdraw), a % of endurance returned on each dodge, max init up by 3 AND Kleptomanic (as you mentioned, not real great for sustaining init, but good for a burst init gain to pop 2 more LDBs on the target)...throw it all together on a thief player who knows who to use the combination and you have a stack of 25 bleeds, solo, on multiple targets.

This is all without Earth sigil and without crits at all, using Carrion armor and a sigil of agony (+10% bleed duration), plus a mix of runes that give +30% bleed duration and some condition damage.

Its possible. Its been done.

But, in the spirit of staying on topic, which I did not do in my first post in this thread...A lot of it depends on how you prefer to play (a squishy answer, I know). Ele can be versatile and a bunker/aura build on them can be quite fun in a group, but solo they are a bit lacking. Mesmer is amusing to watch and play, but the builds themselves seem to be a bit complicated and some of their synergies between traits and weapons don't seem to match up real well. Necro has some nice condition damage abilities, arguably one of the better classes for condition damage (especially AoE condition damage through use of BiP and Epidemic) as well as the ability to run a power/wells build that makes for some funzies in PvE (I wouldn't recommend it too much for PvP just because wells are quite easy to avoid, but then again, I don't do a whole lot of PvP, so take that comment with a grain of salt ).

Personally, so far I like the Necro the best, a power/wells PvE build is enjoyable. I've had some trouble actually getting into the Ele and the Mesmer; they just don't really appeal to me, but I'll get around to playing them eventually.

Hope this helps!

Engineer can do it, like I said before. Shrapnel Grenade alone gets you 54 ticks every 5s, or 10.8 ticks/second. Shrapnel trait is 18s bleed per proc, with 15% chance of proc for 2.7 ticks per grenade. At 3 grenades per second that's 8.1 ticks/second. Sigil of Earth is 9s bleed per proc at approximately 33% chance of proccing with decent crit chance; 3 hits per second makes that about 70% chance of proccing for 6.3 ticks/second. Lastly, Sharpshooter is 30% chance to bleed on crit for 5s, which is about 1 tick average per grenade, or 3 ticks/second. All together that's 28.2 ticks per second which is 3 stacks above the cap.

ProfGast, on 20 February 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

Really don't think I could disagree more with this statement... I suppose you *might* be able to argue from a pure sustained dps argument on paper that you can top off better with warrior or guardian, but not without sacrificing a lot of utility and versatility. I mean, yes, 5 greatsword warriors with FGJ, SoR, Signet of Might, and Frenzy could easily reach maximum might stacks but they don't exactly have a lot of other things they can do...

@OP: It's not really fair to make judgements on Ele or Mesmer just from testing them out at low levels. Mesmer, for example, doesn't REALLY come into its own until level oh... 40. Once they hit that level though, every 5-10 levels is an awesome increase in power. I'd say they have the most unique things they can do out of any class with a slew of reflects, movement skills, stealths and boon sharing.

My only issue with Necromancer, personally, is a lack of build versatility. They're hands down the best condition-management class, and also have surprising survivability.

Elementalist on the other hand, is a bit misleading. From GW1, they should be a burny burst class. However, in GW2, they're more boon management, healing utility, and sustained damage. They're only really fragile before you learn how to cycle their healing, or if you build them that way.

I actually agree with this. Ele has good healing and thus is actually one of the tankiest classes in the game. The problem is that the way GW2 is set up the only thing that really matters in higher-end content is raw DPS output, and direct damage is better than condition damage due to capping. That's why warriors and guardians are good. They could be super squishy and give zero support benefits and they'd still be the #1 pick for dungeons. Tanking would only matter if you could hold aggro and bosses weren't all AOE anyway.

To be honest, the things being mentioned here are not that important to this game at all in my experience. It's about being good at what you do, building some build that works and helps your group and just running with you. The *only* places where profession *might* matter is SPvP or maybe high level fractals? Though I doubt there's a profession that simply can't do them. If people don't want to group with you because of your profession - they're simply sad people that you shouldn't be playing with anyway.

Anyway, I think that any profession can be successful and it depends on the group composition which one has the most potential to be more successful. However, this is augmented by skill to a degree that negates the profession differences in most cases, or at least renders them obsolete. I have not been in a situation where I thought "I wish that Elementalist was a Guardian, then we would've made it!".

As for the OP, I can only speak for the Elementalist and say that it's an incredibly fun profession to play. It has a very high skill-cap (at least, D/D does, I play an Auramancer) and it provides tons of boons and utility, not to mention my own versatility. Survivability is only an issue if you can't get the hang of constant movement and dodges (I think that I'm even better at surviving than most people I play with due to always having to keep an eye out).

I liked elementalist until I was at about 36. For some strange reason, I just couldn't survive as well anymore. :/ I really like the class but that part turned me off.

Well, now that you've tried the ele and didn't like it, that's good. There's only two things left to do: roll a mesmer, then roll a necro!

It's all about the personal experience, but a bit of guidance sometimes helps. Check in with the profession forums and they might have some insight for you.

With all three scholar classes, just remember to kite, strafe and dodge. The only scholar class I know that could get remotely close to face-tanking a mob is a necro, but even so, stay on the move and you'll survive a lot better. Check your gear and traits as well. Build for toughness and vitality first, especially when it comes to gear. Then as you get better at surviving, strip away those bits of survivability and use more aggressive gear.

Well, now that you've tried the ele and didn't like it, that's good. There's only two things left to do: roll a mesmer, then roll a necro!

It's all about the personal experience, but a bit of guidance sometimes helps. Check in with the profession forums and they might have some insight for you.

With all three scholar classes, just remember to kite, strafe and dodge. The only scholar class I know that could get remotely close to face-tanking a mob is a necro, but even so, stay on the move and you'll survive a lot better. Check your gear and traits as well. Build for toughness and vitality first, especially when it comes to gear. Then as you get better at surviving, strip away those bits of survivability and use more aggressive gear.

Mesmer should be built for 100% glass cannon because of Sword 2 and burst 4. Not to mention focus 4 and GS 5 for movement control. There's honestly no reason why you shouldn't be able to survive with a fully DPS-oriented spec. Necro's another where you can err to the side of more DPS because of Death Shroud and inherently high base health (tied with Warriors for the highest of any profession). Eles are, well, squishier. A lot of people go for Soldier's gear (Power/Toughness/Vit) at endgame because it covers a lot of their weaknesses. You're obviously not level 80 yet, but it gives you an idea of what you should be doing as you level.

Personally, I think Mesmers are far and away the best of the scholar classes. Highest DPS of the three and they provide unmatched party support. Focus reflects when traited, Feedback, Portal, Blink, Time Warp, two immunity mechanics, vulnerability, and stealth. Besides Time Warp being probably the single most powerful skill in the game, the amount of utility is incredible. When the current meta is heavily biased towards a Guardian- and Warrior-heavy team, all of the utility provided by a Mesmer actually makes it worth taking. I find it very difficult to say the same about an Elementalist or Necromancer. That's not to say that both professions don't offer their own utility and pros, but the Mesmer easily outshines both professions.

Lastly, there's something to be said about playing the profession you enjoy the most. While Mesmer's probably the best Scholar profession, if you despise them, why force yourself to play it? The worst that will happen is you'll clear instances a few minutes slower than an optimal party comp. Hardly game-breaking. My previous paragraph really only applies if you're interested in min/maxing content, which I happen to enjoy greatly. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's food for thought, nonetheless.

Edit: I'd strongly recommend against condition-based builds for any PvE content, too. It's highly inefficient in a number of ways. That said, it can be extremely powerful in s/tPvP and W3. However, this is the PvE sub-forum, so I'd say avoid it.